Conclusion

Our previous conclusion—that the best reason to use a compact liquid cooler is to make it easier to reach cable connectors that surround the CPU—is once again proven in today’s comparison. The biggest cooler wins, even though it’s an air cooler, and the second-biggest air cooler provides the same cooling performance as the slightly thinner liquid cooler when both are configured with the same high-speed fan.

Another interesting fact is that all three coolers functioned within 1° Celsius of competitors when the same fan was used. Appealing features of Rosewill’s FORT120, such as its direct-touch heat pipe design, appear to have little impact on actual performance, since its larger sink could fully account for such a small performance advantage.

A third interesting result was that turning the exhaust fan backwards provided little benefit in CPU temperature and significantly increased the air temperature at the front of the motherboard. This is our punishment for violating the thermal principles of ATX mid-tower design. Defenders of the concept could point out that many cases have significantly more ventilation through the top panel, via two 120-140mm fans or a single larger fan, but the fact that most people don’t own those cases is something to keep in mind when trying to make nearly-universal recommendations.

I was looking at water, then I decided if I really want to do this I'm going to have to spend at least 200 if i want a good, effective, upgradeable system. So I'm going to get the megahalem or the thermalright TRUE extreme. and stay with some sick air.

still using my old thermaltake big typhoon with a few mods - sealed the gaps on the sides for more air pressure and using a 12cm "thick" fan from a dell tower (crazy) and the same type fan to extract air - works a treat

kinda proves that when your going water cooling, do it PROPERLY not a pre made kit

if i was to do water cooling, i would go all the way with a modded car radiator, drum for a water sump and a few powerful decent sized pumps to start off with to keep everything sweet, none of this "barely better then stock" bs.

The corsair h50 is NOT a water cooling solution. Not even close. At best, call it an "optimized" air cooler. The only situation where you would want one is if you need to install a cooler in a tight space. Otherwise, it's higher cost really ruins any value it has.

Get a Swiftech H220 in there and it will beat the air coolers pretty well, besides that there are no out of the box water cooling setups that can actually beat high end air coolers by anything meaningful.

Good article though, your best articles are when you take the time to answer these odd questions that are commonly asked by the enthusiast.

As many times as I see bottom-PSU cases like the Antec 300 recommended in builds in the Forum, the lingering question for me becomes, "Suppose I do have a bottom-psu top-panel-fan case. Would that make a difference?" Or, is there ANY situation where the cooling performance of this type of liquid cooler is actually superior to a big air cooler?

It would be good to see a comparison of the H50 with a push-pull fan setup.

I have an old-style Antec SLK-B case with a side-port fan (intake) that blows air into and through two push-pull 1500 RPM fans with the H50 radiator sandwiched in-between; these fans blow out, not in. The temp drop from a single fan to dual fans is around 7c degrees.

The biggest advantage of the H50 is noise, or lack thereof. My Tenma sound meter records less than 30db within 1ft of the case. Can't say that for any of the other HSFs I've tried (mostly stock).

rpmrushAir is still a better value unless you value noise or lack there of.Water offers lower noise @ a slightly less extreme overclock, but who runs 4.0Ghz plus everyday.

Air can be very quiet, but it requires that you keep fan speeds low. A good 120 mm fan running at 1000 rpm or less is just about inaudible, but such low speeds mean you can't overclock a whole lot. I'd guess based on my experience that you wouldn't want to pump more than about 150-160 W through a decent 120 mm tower heatsink like the ones used in the review if you keep the fans

@vinshonIMO you should be able to build a custom water setup in that case. Custom water will cool much better than the h50 anyday. Will it cost more than the h50? Yes but if you're gonna do water do water, these little prebuilt kits really don't cut it when comes to shedding heat or noise levels

theLaminator@vinshonIMO you should be able to build a custom water setup in that case. Custom water will cool much better than the h50 anyday. Will it cost more than the h50? Yes but if you're gonna do water do water, these little prebuilt kits really don't cut it when comes to shedding heat or noise levels

Yep, I started out with a little pre-built kit but now I use a custom built loop to cool my CPU and northbridge/southbridge. Keeps the temp way way down on both. I have a 780i and the northbridge & southbridge have terrible stock cooling and the CPU is a quad core overclocked to 3.75GHz and it still stays icy cold.

yeah i would like to see you guys do some loop testing with some danger den stuff. I have a custom loop with an old ehiem pump, danger den waterblock, and a dual 120mm heatercore, and it stomps temps. I reach the limit of the cpu way before I tax the loop.

I just ditched the Domino when a "self-contained" pump burst and spewed coolant all over the VGA's, motherboard, and PSU. It was a nifty little thing, but the Zalman 9700 replacement I got seems to cool better and cost a lot less. Having tried both big air and little water, I really don't see the benefit of little water. If you want liquid, just go full out with "big water" in my humble opinion.